Bangladesh Awami League mayoral candidate Talukder Abdul Khalek was unofficially declared elected in the Khulna City Corporation (KCC) election on Tuesday (May 15). Khalek won the election with a big margin bagging 176,902 votes while his nearest rival Nazurl Islam Manju of Bangladesh Nationalist Party polled 108,956 in 286 election centres out of total 289, local media reports said.
The voting was suspended in the remaining three centres due to "violence", "capturing of polling stations" and "forced stuffing".
Returning officer Yunus Ali made the announcement around 9:44 p.m.
Earlier, the balloting in the KCC election was held amid allegations of capturing some polling stations, vote fraud and violence in some areas. The voting began at 8 a.m. and ended at 4 p.m. without any break. The turnout of voters was said to be around 50 percent.
A total of five mayoral candidates, 148 general councillor and 38 reserved-seat female councillor candidates were there in the election race.
The mayoral contenders were Awami League's Talukder Abdul Khalek, Nazrul Islam Manju of BNP, Jatiya Party's Shafiqur Rahman Mushfiq, Islami Andolan Bangladesh's Maulana Mozammil Haque and CPB's Mizanur Rahman Babu.
